No more ghost classrooms?
The right time to build badly needed classrooms, Sen. Bam Aquino observed in a recent education report, was three years ago.
Today, the price of that delay is plain to see, as public schools face a shortfall of at least 145,000 classrooms by President Marcos’ estimate, even before accounting for typhoon and earthquake damage. The deficit balloons to over 165,000 if one goes by the count of the Second Congressional Commission on Education (Edcom 2).
To reduce the staggering backlog, a new partnership was formed between the Department of Education (DepEd) and local government units (LGUs). Under the memorandum of agreement, DepEd will provide funding, technical standards and classroom designs, while LGUs will handle procurement and construction.
Instead of coursing funds through national agencies, budgets will be downloaded directly to capable LGUs in the name of speed and efficiency. The first phase targets 4,000 classrooms, a reasonable start but one that seems too incremental against a shortage that could swell to 200,000 by 2028.
An alternative approach
Mr. Marcos has pledged there will be no ghost classrooms under this setup, operating under the assumption that local officials who must face their constituents daily will think twice before any overt or covert act of corruption.
“What if we run into problems again with a ghost project or substandard work? That won’t happen under the LGU. It won’t work because the people are right in front of you,” the President said, arguing that mayors and governors could not escape parents knocking on their doors. He expressed confidence that with greater local responsibility, “everything we do will be done properly.”
It is a compelling political argument, and, pointedly, a tacit vote of no confidence in the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), which previously held the exclusive mandate to build public school classrooms. Low completion rates and corruption allegations involving district engineers have dogged the agency, fueling calls for an alternative approach.
But Mr. Marcos might be forgetting something: Corruption is as entrenched in municipal and provincial halls as it is in national offices.
Critics rightly warned that without tight safeguards, the partnership could simply shift the venue of abuse from the national stage to the local arena. Malacañang insisted otherwise, stressing that as a joint program, a strict performance-based framework would prevent shenanigans.
Condemned by 2028
No classroom built by LGUs, the President vowed, will be turned over without DepEd’s written validation that standards have been met. Even so, the scale of the crisis dwarfs the first tranche of funding.
The government has allocated P9.6 billion to build 4,000 classrooms, of which 1,200 are to be constructed by LGUs and 2,800 prefabricated units to be procured by DepEd, across Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao.
But against a shortage exceeding 145,000, or 165,443, depending on whose data one uses, it is also a reminder of how huge the gap is. Not to mention, the country faces not just a backlog but a replacement crisis. Of roughly 329,716 school buildings nationwide, about 122,518 have already exceeded their 25-year design life, according to Edcom 2’s final report.
The congressional body warned that 51,222 classrooms are projected to be condemned by 2028 once they hit 50 years of age. This looming wave of obsolescence threatens to cancel out gains from new construction, turning the problem into a race against decay.
The human cost of this failure is visible in students who endure shifting schedules, overcrowded rooms, and classes held in corridors or covered courts.
As Aquino noted, addressing the classroom gap will take more than one year and more than one administration, perhaps six to 10 years of sustained, high-level funding. Which means the government is chasing a moving target–and is already behind.
Cautious optimism
In that light, the President’s declaration that there will be no more ghost classrooms sounds both necessary and premature. It’s necessary, because the country can no longer afford projects that exist only on paper or crumble early, and premature, because eliminating corruption is only one battle in a much larger war against delay, underfunding, and inefficiency.
Still, there is room for cautious optimism. Breaking the DPWH’s monopoly, engaging LGUs and exploring public-private partnerships are all welcome signs that the administration is rethinking a broken system. For decentralization to transform the way the government builds classrooms, these moves must be accompanied by transparent pricing, rigorous validation, and sustained financing.
In the end, hope must be anchored not just in ambition but in actual numbers. This school infrastructure reform will have succeeded only once safe and durable classrooms stand where there were none, built in the right way, at the right time, and for the right price.
******
Get real-time news updates: inqnews.net/inqviber
